Clones and Heartbeats
by WindyWords123
Summary: Superboy wasn't Superman's first clone. In fact, he was his twenty sixth.
1. Clones

_This was originally from the YJ anon meme. It's very reminiscent of miscarriage, so you may want to avoid it. I have not watched past Image, so this will ignore any episodes beyond that._

He's just gotten so _tired _of it all.

Clark was the last of his kind...

Except he wasn't.

There was Chris, Ben, Jamie, Callie, Heide... and eventually he just got tired of it all.

It was always hard, at first. He always tried to keep them out of sight, after Chris. Chris lasted barely a day. It had been such a lift, to not be _alone _anymore, to know he could pass on everything to someone, to know that someone else might understand.

And then.

And then.

And then there'd been Ben, and Clark had thought that Ben would survive. Surely, Chris had just been... just had a slight defect. Ben would survive, right?

He hadn't.

By the time he'd found Heide, Clark had stopped expecting the clones would survive. He always hoped. But slowly, his own private cemetery filled up.

So when he arrived at Cadmus and saw his own face staring back at him (for the eighteenth time, plus five girls and two that hadn't... hadn't turned out quite identical) Clark couldn't _deal _with it.

He couldn't bury another child.

He let the clone join the team, and he tried not to look at him, because maybe if he didn't look at him he could pretend he hadn't seen that very same face staring up at him from a coffin eighteen times before (plus five girls and two that hadn't turned out quite identical).

The months wore on.

This was the longest a clone had ever lasted.

Every time he saw his face... every time he saw _Conner _(he'd named all the others why hadn't he named Conner, taken him in, why hadn't he), his heart leapt and then plunged to its death once again, because if he allowed himself to hope he'd find himself facing another burial.

And Clark couldn't bury another child.

He'd buried twenty five children.

Clark Kent wasn't losing this one, even if that meant not having him at all.


	2. Heartbeats

Conner only wanted Superman to look at him.

That... that was all.

He would _like_ it if there was more, but...

If Superman looked at him, even just once, he wouldn't come to Metropolis anymore.

He'd stay at the cave, and he'd listen to _his _heartbeat, because he was _always _listening to that, so subtly from a human heart in ways no one but Su – but a Kryptonian could understand.

But he wouldn't come to Metropolis anymore.

He knew Superman could hear him, because Superman was everything he was and _a lot _more, but he wondered if he listened for Superboy's heartbeat.

He hoped he did.

He was not going to Metropolis now. He knew that Superman spent a lot of time in Metropolis, a lot of time in Kansas, and many fleeting moments _here._

He'd been to Metropolis, and that was his city, and he'd been to Kansas, and that was his home, but... where was _here_?

It was in the Arctic somewhere, but it wasn't the Fortress of Solitude, like he'd seen in the simulation.

He was glad about that.

He didn't like to think about the simulation.

Superman wasn't here now. He was in the Watchtower. Conner hated the Watchtower, because all heartbeats disappeared there, no matter how hard he tried to listen. He knew it was because sound didn't travel without air and there wasn't air in space, but somehow he thought if he listened _hard _enough...

If he listened hard enough, he'd be able to hear Superman's heartbeat.

But he couldn't, he was just a clone. Maybe _Superman _could do something like that, but he couldn't.

He'd chosen this time specifically, though. He didn't want Superman to hear him following him.

He had arrived now, to a metal arch. Undecorated.

Inside were twenty five tombstones.

Superboy wandered, and with every carefully inscribed epitaph, with every beautiful piece of artwork, with every touching poem, he got angrier and angrier.

He hadn't been the first.

And Superman had looked at every clone...

But one.


	3. Pain

He wanted to smash those stupid headstones to pieces, because who were _they _to get something he never would? Most had lasted barely a day, but he'd named them, taken them in, treated them like his _children_!

How was that fair?

Why did _they _get a father, but he didn't?

Why was he different?

Conner almost – _almost – _destroyed the entire cemetery.

But Superman would never desecrate a place like that.

So Conner didn't either.

Even... even though Superman clearly didn't want him – not just a child, but _him_, specifically, he'd... uphold his ideals.

Or what he thought were his ideals. Conner wouldn't know. He'd never met the man.

Conner left. He went back to his room in Mount Justice (he didn't have anywhere else to go) and buried his head under his pillow and tried not to listen to Superman's heartbeat when it returned ((too soon, too soon)).

He wished he hadn't gotten superhearing, either.

It's not like it would have made any difference.

~-!-~

He _knew _it was wrong.

Knew it was unfair to neglect Conner just because he was hurting.

But, dammit, sometimes...

He never got to do anything for _himself_. And it was selfish and unfair but...

He couldn't do this.

He couldn't.

He watched him, listened to him, and wished that he was stronger, wished he could survive another heartbreak.

_Sticks and stones can break by bones, but words will never hurt me_.

Just the opposite, really.

Not words, exactly, but what about love?

That was a word, wasn't it?

Maybe a bit more than a word.

No words could hurt this much.


	4. Hope

He always hopes.

Even though he _knows,_ with absolute certainty, that Superman hates him...

He can't bring himself to truly believe it.

There can be no other explanation for a graveyard filled with a love so tangible you can almost _taste_ it in the air and an inability to exchange a word with him, and yet his heart of hearts remains absolutely convinced that in this deep current of devotion, there is one small eddy for him.

He sits on the couch and watches the static and lets his mind drift high into the air, lets himself gain wings, lets himself believe he deserves to wear that stylized S.

If only in his dreams.

Hope flourishes in dreams.

The Luthor situation brings him down, heavily, to earth.

He had been hoping that maybe he would grow into his powers, maybe it was just temporary, maybe if he waited long enough...

But no.

One should never trust in maybes.

Flying, though, flying almost makes up for it all. It is everything he ever dreamed of.

Except it is not, because in his dreams he does not fly alone, borrowing wings from his... from Superman's greatest enemy.

Maybe the other clones had been able to fly without wings of wax.

Maybe that is why Superman loved them.

Conner knows it is foolish to deal in maybes, but they are the currency of hope, and hope is all his shattered heart has left.

~-!-~

_I was thinking of Emily Dickinson's 'Hope is the Thing With Feathers' throughout. You should read it, it's beautiful. __Also there is a fairly obvious reference to a myth._


	5. Spring

The storm whirls on. Nothing changes.

Days wear on into weeks wear on into months. Still the little boy battered by the tempest from the moment he emerged from his ship and the already wind scored man won't exchange glances. Those in the eye of the storm try to heal them, but to attempt to assemble a broken heart before the fragments have even hit the ground only scatters the pieces further. To mend theirs prematurely would be to scramble the pieces, to tamper and to destroy two hearts shattered but still, despite it all, pure.

Somewhere beyond an icy barricade of grief, Clark's heartbeat pulses, loud and heavy and oh so regretful. And Conner has learned. Kept out by that barricade himself, he has cloned it, pushing his longing behind a wall of pain and abandonment and neglect.

Their hearts beat in tandem, even as gazes fail to penetrate the two impermeable walls and both look away at the same time, eyes still inevitably drawn to each other, to the pounding heartbeat they know to exist.

And in the end it is almost nothing.

Of course it almost nothing. How could it ever be anything else? The smallest grain of sand, after all, is the only one able to fit in the hairline cracks in their walls. Nothing else would do. Everything begins somewhere.

They are forced together once again by those who seek to mend their hearts too early, before the glass has even settled on the ground. They try even as the razor sharp shards, still falling, cut their hands with long gashes.

But perhaps they are good to do so, for though they disturb the fragments still more, they are brought closer.

It is merely another darting glance, stolen between snatches of laughter neither of them truly feels.

And neither the battered boy nor the wind scored man look away.

Somewhere, a small, cold breeze peters out, and without it, a single drop of water falls from an icy blockade.

Spring is beginning.

_The only reason this was so terribly delayed was that I felt like I had to watch new episodes, because I know they develop the canonical relationship more, but that's hard for me so I was procrastinating and finally I gave up and wrote this without watching any episodes since roughly the middle of season one, since it's AU anyways. I'm sorry._

_I was considering continuing, but I like it as is. Maybe an epilogue at some point, if I get a lot of people asking for it. _


End file.
